I know I vowed to only give reviews for new(ish) movies, but this just has to be addressed. I am a big fan of the author Barry Eisler, particularly his John Rain series, about a half-American half-Japanese assassin. When a movie based on the first book "Rain Fall" came out in 2009 under the same title, I was pretty stoked. I just got my hands on the DVD the other day (the movie was only released in Japan). Wow. That is all I am going to say. I mean, were they trying to make a movie, or create like, an anti-movie, one for up and coming directors on what not to do?
Rain Fall the movie is a special kind of bad. We are talking Salt bad, if readers remember a recent post of mine about Angelina Jolie's Razzy Award candidate. I made it to about the 40 minute mark with Rain Fall, then decided I had more important things to do. Others were watching it with me, and since we paid for the piece of trash, we left in on. I used my laptop and half-listened at the same time. Awful, I mean, putrid acting. Gary Oldman, get a real job. Acting isn't your thing. Okay, the lines were probably written by someone who didn't know what a movie was (some of the worst dialogue I have ever heard, my eardrums bled a little bit) but still, just absolutely terrible acting. Effort anyone?, please? The editing? No Oscars for this one. It was like someone shot a whole bunch of different scenes that were totally unrelated, than threw them together and called in Rain Fall. One minute are hero John Rain is on the subway platform than BOOM, there is a random cop looking around someone's house. The movie barely kept in line with the book storyline. Even if it did, this movie would still be some kind of awful. The funny thing is, the summary given on the back of the DVD box was actually wildly different from what happened in the movie. The story made almost no sense, and this wasn't aided by the atrocious editing, which just jumbled shit up and left the viewer confused. I read the book, and I had no idea what was going on. At all. Even the fight scenes sucked. The John Rain from the books would put down a knife-wielding yakuza thug with ease. The movie's John Rain? Sliced in the side....and has to run away. Seriously? Did the director read the book? Or saw the cover, read the synopsis and thought: "OK, get Gary Oldman on the phone, I got something....."
Barry Eisler needs to distance himself from the movie. Not only is the movie just a total insult to the film industry, I died inside a little bit knowing it was "based" on what is a very very good novel. Barry, your books are way behind this, just disavow all knowledge of this movie.
Verdict: Read the book, burn the movie. Grade: F
If you liked this movie you might like: Salt.
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